The present disclosure relates to creating adhesive signage sheets, and more particularly, to an improved method and article for creating adhesive signage sheets that can be uneventfully fed into a xerographic printing apparatus.
In general, marketing signs for in-store shelving can be either an adhesive type or non-adhesive type. In U.S. Pat. No. 7,975,416 B2, a non-adhesive type marketing sign is shown that includes a free portion, a base portion and a connected portion that couples the base portion to the free portion. The base portion includes an engaging piece and a support piece. The engaging piece is coupled to the support piece of a base bend line and configured to engage with a portion of a product display structure having a price holder. Another marketing sign is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 8,302,338 constructed of sheet material. The sheet material includes a free portion, a base portion and a connecting portion that couples the base portion to the free portion. The base portion includes an engaging piece and a support piece. The engaging piece is coupled to the support piece at a base bend line and configured to engage with a portion of a product display structure having a price holder. The connecting is defined between a first connecting bend line spaced apart from a second connecting bend line by a first distance. The first connecting bend line is adjacent the support piece of the base portion and the second connecting bend line is adjacent the free portion. The first distance substantially corresponds with a top edge thickness of the price holder.
The process currently used to create adhesive signage for store shelving involves applying a PSA (pressure sensitive adhesive) tape to a paper sheet or other substrate and then printing signs on the modified substrate. The tape involves an adhesive and a backer which leads to a major problem when feeding the signage into a printer due to the uneven deformation of sheet stacks as a result of the pressure sensitive adhesive tape along the top of the sheets and none along the bottom of the sheets. The media is ˜8 mils thick and the adhesive tape is ˜10 mils thick leading to a total thickness of roughly 18 mils on one side of the media and 8 mils on the other. One solution to this problem is to use an additional and sacrificial tape strip along the bottom of the sheets or the sheets cannot be fed. However, this creates an additional problem in that the cost of the tape used in this process is prohibitively high and the tape strips are not optimized for high speed slitting with cross process collation need for specialized in-store applications.
Therefore, there is still a need for an improved and less costly taped media that can be easily fed into a printer.